Understanding Emotions

Understanding Emotions

Emotion is the relation between feeling and thought. In other words, when feeling is encountered and is subjected to mental consideration and the reaction is radiated into the astral body, ’emotion’ is generated. This process may proceed consciously and deliberately and thus with a somewhat retarded and discriminative effect, as for instance when savouring the palatability of food. The more usual occurrence, however, is that the procedure is largely automatic, with the reaction instantly flashing from the sensed area to the brain, and from there to the emotional body. An example of the latter is where physical harm is suffered, followed by an immediate chain of reaction, ranging from a feeling of pain, followed perhaps by rage or fear, or a combination of these effects.

Emotion may also evoke desire. When the mind recognizes the feeling produced in the astral body, and the resulting emotion is pleasurable, then desire for the continuance or repetition is created. If on the other hand the sensation is painful, then the mental reaction would be for desisting the causal agency.

Through the presentation of facts the mind may succeed in subduing emotions. So often the problem is how to induce the individual under emotional stress to summon his mental powers, which would enable him to assess the situation and to subject it to calm and dispassionate scrutiny.

Health conditions may be seriously affected by emotional attitudes. This is because man’s vital body is still primarily governed and swept into activity by his emotional vehicle. When the latter becomes violently agitated and is for instance disturbed by excessive temper, intense worry or other continuous irritation, then a stream of emotional energy will be poured into the etheric body, galvanizing such centres as the solar plexus into intense activity. This will be reflected in the endocrine and nervous systems, as well as in the blood stream, causing indigestion, biliousness, other gastric disturbances, or headaches and related complaints. Similarly bitterness, disgust, hatred, or a sense of frustration, are apt to induce many of the prevalent toxic conditions of the physical system, evoking a general state of ill health. Or ideals may have exceeded accomplishments, leading to frustration and suffering.

The cure for many of these conditions lies in the simple word acceptance — that is the positive attitude of accepting conditions which, notwithstanding our best efforts, seem to be unavoidable — but with the determination to bring the emotions under closer control, and to do better next time.

The ideal should be to achieve perfect poise — this involves the complete curbing of the astral body and overcoming or minimizing emotional upheavals. To be relieved of excessive emotional reaction must lead to considerably improved mental clarity and therefore clearer discrimination.

Now a closer scrutinity will be made of some of the emotions which are daily encountered, and which as a rule are so difficult to command.

Fear

Fear — that dark, depressing cloud which in some form or another overshadows every human life! Fear is evoked in the first instance by ignorance. Where wisdom rules, where there is real knowledge and understanding, and where astral influences therefore no longer dominate, fear disappears. It is based on instinct and plays a predominating role in the animal world where instinctive fear is a prerequisite for survival, because the mental equipment to foresee impending danger is lacking. In the human being traces of this animal instinct are retained, but paradoxically the power of fear is enormously aggravated by the same quality which should guard him from fear — the power of the mind. The problem is that knowledge is still incomplete and the mind is wrongly harnessed; past pain and misery are remembered and projected into the future in anticipation of what might happen, thus building an exaggerated thought-form depicting all our worst fears. By paying attention to these thought-forms they are further embroidered and magnified, for ‘energy follows thought’, till the individual falls a complete prey to these fears, often suffering excruciating mental pain.

Fear is a feature which all human beings suffer in common. It is the dominant astral energy, and is created by the interaction of the emotional and mental planes. It ranges from the instinctive but relatively simple fears of the savage, arising from his ignorance of the laws and forces of nature and his consequent fear of the unknown, to the prevailing gamut of fears of modern man, resulting from the complexities of a more competitive existence together with the increased responsibilities and sensitivity associated with an evolving consciousness. There are the fears of loss of health and eventually of death; fear of the future, including loss of property and money, of status, popularity and friendships; fear of loneliness, of retribution, of darkness, of the unrevealed, of the great beyond… and so the list of fears may be extended, which seemingly multiply in direct proportion to man’s development, until the stage is reached when understanding of the self and the soul gradually exerts mastery over the lower vehicles.

The statement that fear is an illusion, is quite correct, but how difficult to dismiss this illusion and to relieve the tortures of premonition, doubt and uncertainty. Undue and unreasonable fear has already withheld opportunity from many a man, so let life’s activities be guided by common sense, facts and reality, and not by fictitious imaginings.

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Aymen Fares is an Intuitive Life Coach, Speaker and Author with clients all over the world. He is based in Melbourne Australia and is the editor of this web site. Find out more about Life Coaching with Aymen or join one of his Workshops by clicking on the link "Aymen Fares" above.